Still on workshops. I took another CGMA course the semester after I took the perspective one. This time I took Environment Design for Games 2, instructed by James Paick. I did his other masterclass (Environment Design for Games 1) earlier, so figured this was the natural choice. I really struggled with this one as I was going through a learning curve dip. The approach was different than the first masterclass, as this one had a central theme: colony. I wanted to steer away from humans settling.

Some exploratory thumbs. I was thinking about insects surviving an apocalyptic event, wiping out the human race.

More along the same theme. Values really suffered in some of these.

Continuation on the 2 I found most interesting. Both depict a spider / ant hybrid race. One lives in an arctic environment, using ice crystals for their habitat, the other has an ant hill like structure over water. I imagine them building webs for hunting and living in a hive like structure.

More of the same. Same problems as before. I like 1 and 3 though.

A bit better result. Exterior shot of the arctic ones, hunting and catching some seafood.

Interior - nursery with detail call out and references. Workers gather liquefied food frozen into crystal shards and place these in feeding pillars. Heat travels through these and the liquefied food melts and slowly trickle down these shafts. Holes in the shaft allow portions to drop down, feeding the hatchlings beneath it. In the background the queen can be seen laying more eggs. 

Arms Cartel work

I had the opportunity to do some work for Pixel Addicts' iOS crime game Arms Cartel. You can get it at the app store here. 

I did 2 character designs, in-game portraits and splash screens. Initially it was only for 1 splash screen, but it soon expanded into a character design and in-game portrait as well. I guess they liked it since they came back later for a female character as well. ^^ They asked me to wait with posting, but I got approval to show them now.

The brief was for a Lord of War-ish arms trader with a bad-ass attitude. Unfortunately they didn't pick the 'Travolta in Pulp Fiction' haircut (3, 4 and 5C) :/.

The head designs :

heads 1-1

heads 1-2

heads 1-3

heads 1-4

heads 1-5

In-game / splash screen images. Pixel Addicts wanted a digitally painted look for these, not the more chalky look of the designs. 

image 1 Yeah, the money and falling bullets weren't very good. The version in the game, without those, looks better.

in-game portrait

splash screen (yes, head kept largely the same as the portrait :). Hurrah, for digital tools! )

For the female character we took a similar, but more streamlined approach. Keywords were strong and sexy and initially an Angelina Jolie / Tombraider kind of girl, but the final version has a bit of Michelle Rodriguez  and a tiny bit of Olivia Wilde and Jessica Alba thrown in. 

Heads: 

Heads 1 (haircut ended up being a more conventional version of 1I)

3 head and 3 haircut variations based on 1I, with 2K as the winner!

And the in-game portrait and splash screen:

portrait

Splash screen. Yup, we kept the sky. ;) They changed her a bit for the final version (less strong jaw, more curvy), but being the artsy guy I still prefer this version (even though their tweaked version is closer to the portrait).

These were a lot of fun to do! Go play Arms Cartel now and see them in their 'natural' environment! And leave forum posts that they need more characters / splash screens ;), especially more sexy women and one with oversized sunglasses and tattoos (like I originally planned for this one).

Some work

They're from a pitch for an iOS game that fell through:

character design

pet design

style suggestions

sketch for the background

My favorite part of the background ^^

Oh well, better luck next time eh? ;)

More stuff

Some work of the past few weeks. I've been busy with job searching, art tests, pitches etc. and finally a small freelance gig.

This is from another CoW and a doodle.

I went for a front and side view ortho instead of an illustration this time

started from various silhouettes.

Cute critter

That's it for now, have a great day!

More

A study of a M6 Bradly and a scifi soldier concept which was considered too human:

Some new work

I did my first paid freelance design job the other day, so a big shout out to the people over at Xform! ;) Go play their games, they're free and online!

With their permission, here are the robots I designed for them. It was a bit of a rush job, so only 1 view per design. You can click the image for a bigger version.

Melee robot

Crawler, I think it self detonates

Tank type unit

Standard robot

The player, kind of a souped up or v2 of the standard robot.

And my entry to the Rift: Create a Colossus contest:

The contest was to create a 10-story high colossus of a single plane (I chose 'death')  for the MMO Rift. I started way too late of course, so was in a bit of a hurry with this one. Then again, I need to get faster anyway.

And a study of a fashion ad, just for fun and practice: